Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

The publicly listed company Microstrategy announced that it has plans to purchase more bitcoin after acquiring 71,079 bitcoin during the last six months. On Tuesday, Microstrategy revealed its plans to sell $600 million in convertible senior notes to qualified institutional buyers in order to use the funds for bitcoin. Selling Convertible Notes for Bitcoin At around 7:59 a.m. (EST) on Tuesday morning, Microstrategy (Nasdaq: MSTR) CEO, Michael Saylor tweeted about a new private sale his firm is committing to in order to sell $600 million in convertible senior notes. Microstrategy’s announcement says that the notes will be unsecured, senior obligations of Microstrategy, and will bear interest semi-annually to holders. The notes will mature on February 15, 2027, and Microstrategy says that the firm can redeem cash for all the notes sold. The announcement further reads: Microstrategy intends to use the net proceeds from the sale of the notes to acquire additional bitcoins. Micro

The price of bitcoin touched an all-time high surpassing the $50k handle on February 16, 2021. Cryptocurrency advocates celebrated the milestone as bitcoin has spiked more than 200% during the last 90 days and 400% against the U.S. dollar for the entire year. Bitcoin ( BTC ) has crossed the psychological $50,000 zone after fighting the region for more than 24 hours. The leading cryptocurrency, in terms of market capitalization, has gained more than 154% since the all-time high in December 2017. At around 7:37 a.m. (EST) bitcoin ( BTC ) hit $50,603 per unit on Tuesday. Bitcoin ( BTC ) touched an all-time high at $50,603 per unit on Tuesday, February 16, 2021. While BTC captures the $50k mark, the crypto asset’s dominance index is only 61% today. This is due to ethereum ( ETH ) commanding 13.81% of the overall crypto economy’s value and tether ( USDT ) capturing 2.21%. Meanwhile, cardano ( ADA ), polkadot (DOT), and binance coin ( BNB ) all have a touch less than 2%. BTC ’s ha

Tesla CEO Elon Musk believes that too many dogecoins are held by too few whales and has made them a huge offer. He will give his full support if they sell most of their coins, and will even pay actual money for them to destroy their coins in some provable fashion. Some believe that major dogecoin holders need to consider Musk’s offer for the long-term health of the meme cryptocurrency. Elon Musk’s Big Offer to Large Dogecoin Holders Elon Musk believes that dogecoin’s uneven concentration in the hands of a few holders is the only real issue with the meme cryptocurrency and has offered his help to solve the problem. The Spacex CEO tweeted Sunday: “If major dogecoin holders sell most of their coins, it will get my full support. Too much concentration is the only real issue imo … I will literally pay actual $ if they just void their accounts.” At the time of writing, his original tweet got 24.7K comments and has been liked 297.9K times. His follow-up tweet got 6.4K comments and has be

In Mendoza, Argentina, law enforcement launched an investigation against a sports-related investment site for presumably being a bitcoin scam. Among the inquiries, authorities are investigating if they’re involved in money laundering and tax evasion. Platform Claims to Invest Customer’s Funds in Placing Soccer Bets According to Clarin , Javier Giaroli, the prosecutor from the Public Ministry of San Rafael, leads the inquiries against Ganancias Deportivas. Local authorities have been interviewing several alleged victims to determine whether it’s a Ponzi scam or not. Per the findings, Ganancias Deportivas attracted over 41,000 residents from the province of Mendoza, 30,000 of them living in the city of San Rafael. Allegedly based in Costa Rica, the platform offers investment packages that promise high yield returns of 20% monthly and 240% yearly. However, they ask for a one-time payment of 100 euros to join the site, and if each member can refer others to the platform, they can rec

Online censorship has taken front and center since the sweeping ban of former U.S. President Donald Trump from every social outlet he’s been a part of. Other high-profile censorship acts, like Amazon removing alt-right social network Parler from its servers and My Pillow CEO Michael Lindell being banned from Twitter have presented a new paradigm of online censorship. Decentralized database service Bluzelle has decided to fight back so to speak. It has announced a $500,000 grant for censorship-resistant applications in what seems like a direct response to recent acts of online censorship by Big Tech. Bluzelle CTO, Neeraj Murarka, has shared with news.Bitcoin.com his perspective on the ongoing debate surrounding online censorship and Bluzelle’s strong push against it. Bitcoin.com (BC): With major tech brands currently in hot water with the federal government around issues of censorship, what is the motivation behind Bluzelle getting involved in this issue right now? Neeraj Muraka:

A body representing cryptocurrency and blockchain stakeholders in Nigeria has joined other crypto industry players in assailing the recent Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) directive to banks. The CBN order, which seeks snuff out crypto entities from the banking system, took effect on February 5, 2020. Not Just a Mere Reiteration In a statement , the body, known as the Blockchain Industry Coordinating Committee of Nigeria (BICCON), also dismisses the CBN’s assertion that the new directive is just a “mere reiteration” of what it said in January 2017. The latest directive effectively banned financial institutions from providing services to persons and/or entities transacting in cryptocurrency. Further, the BICCON castigates the CBN for failing to give “any adequate notice or court order of any court of competent jurisdiction.” Also highlighting the hastiness as well as the chaotic implementation of the order, the BICCON reveals how some crypto companies have been affected by this decisio

Cryptocurrency users are leveraging their new-found wealth to fly more often with private jets. This week the directional aviation company Privatefly revealed that close to 20% of the firm’s sales were paid in cryptocurrencies last month, and 13% out of that aggregate used bitcoin. On-Demand Private Flights and Crypto According to data from the company Privatefly , purchasing flights with digital assets has soared in recent times. For instance, the directional aviation company said a few years ago, the company pulled in 1-2% from crypto payments for flights. The numbers jumped significantly in December 2020 to 12%, and subsequently spiked to 13% during the first month of 2021. Out of the 13% in BTC payments, cryptocurrency settlement, in general, makes up 19% of Privatefly’s revenue. Adam Twidell, Privatefly’s CEO. The flight company says that Privatefly started accepting bitcoin early in 2014 and since then, it has expanded its cryptocurrency support. The company uses Bitpay f

Just recently the Mexican billionaire, Ricardo Salinas Pliego, joined Elon Musk and a number of high-profile people, by adding the bitcoin hashtag to his Twitter bio. Salinas is one of Mexico’s wealthiest individuals with a fortune of around $13.2 billion and 10% of the entrepreneur’s liquid portfolio is in bitcoin. Grupo Salinas Chairman Joins the Bitcoin Bio Twitter Trend Ricardo Salinas Pliego is the third-wealthiest individual in the nation-state of Mexico and back in 2013, he purchased BTC for $200. At the time he claimed , it was the “best investment ever.” “I want to sit around for another five or ten years”, he said during the interview in December 2020. Moreover, the Mexican billionaire recently told the public that 10% of his liquid portfolio is in bitcoin (BTC) . Salinas is also vocal about his love for bitcoin on Twitter and once tweeted that “[bitcoin] is inflationary expropriation. Now the chairman at conglomerate Grupo Salinas has put the bitcoin hashtag on his

PRESS RELEASE. Even though Bitcoin and Ethereum are called ‘cryptocurrencies’ people still treat them like assets instead of currencies. People are not spending cryptocurrencies on a large scale, nor are merchants accepting them on a similar scale. Generally speaking, you still cannot pay for a cup of coffee at your local café with your bitcoin. Jax.Network , a project based in Kyiv, Ukraine has endeavored to solve this issue. Its goal is to bring cryptocurrency to mainstream day-to-day use by first replacing the stablecoin market, with its decentralized, scalable, Proof of Work based coin ‘Jax Coin’ and then aiming for the greater global payments market after. A gargantuan goal to say the least, however, it was not born out of a whim. Much thought, time, and research have gone into the project since its inception in 2018. As the project was beginning, members of the newly formed Jax.Network team had one goal: to research and develop a decentralized, scalable, and stable coin that w

Paypal’s cryptocurrency services are coming to the United Kingdom, as the digital payments giant is now targeting non-U.S. countries. Buy, sell and hold digital asset products could be available for Paypal’s U.K. customers in “a number of months.” Results With the Paypal Crypto Services Have ‘Exceeded’ Expectations in the US During Paypal’s Investor Day 2021 event, Jonathan Auerbach, executive chief strategy and growth officer at the digital payments firm, unveiled plans of deploying the crypto services in the region. According to the executive, the crypto product has surpassed Paypal’s expectations in the United States. In October 2020, the firm announced customers could buy, sell and hold bitcoin and other virtual coins with the company’s online wallets. One month later, during an earnings call, Paypal said that “all eligible Paypal account holders in the U.S.” could access the service. The crypto service supports bitcoin ( BTC ), ethereum ( ETH ), bitcoin cash ( BCH ), and l

Allianz’s chief economic advisor, Mohamed El-Erian, says that the argument for investing in bitcoin has reached a pivot point. He sees more companies following Tesla’s example and embracing bitcoin as an investment vehicle as well as a form of payment. Allianz’s Economic Advisor Says the Argument for Bitcoin Is Now Positive Economist Mohamed El-Erian has highlighted key reasons for investing in bitcoin in an interview with CNBC last week. El-Erian, an Egyptian-American businessman, is President of Queens’ College, Cambridge University. He is also chief economic adviser at Allianz, the corporate parent of PIMCO, one of the largest investment managers, where he was CEO and co-chief investment officer. “The argument for bitcoin is evolving. It used to be a negative argument,” the chief economic advisor described. He elaborated that the reasons for investing in bitcoin used to be “You don’t trust the system, invest in bitcoin. You are afraid about inflation, about debasement, invest i

Morgan Stanley’s chief global strategist says that “regardless of where the price of bitcoin goes next, cryptocurrencies are here to stay as a serious asset class.” He added that bitcoin is making progress towards replacing the dollar as a medium of exchange. Morgan Stanley Bullish on Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies Morgan Stanley’s head of emerging markets and chief global strategist, Ruchir Sharma, published a report entitled “Why Crypto Is Coming Out of the Shadows” on the Morgan Stanley website last week. “Despite the jitters natural in a global pandemic, cryptocurrencies are rapidly gaining popular support as alternatives to gold (a store of value) and the dollar (as a means of payment),” he began. The strategist elaborated: We see fundamental reasons to believe that — regardless of where the price of bitcoin goes next — cryptocurrencies are here to stay as a serious asset class. Sharma explained that one reason “is growing distrust in fiat currencies, thanks to massive money

Digital currency prices are on the move again, after tumbling a hair downwards during Sunday evening’s trading sessions. On Sunday the price of bitcoin dropped -7.64% after touching a lifetime price high at $49,715 and then slid to $45,915. As trading sessions entered into Monday, BTC has regained some of the losses as it jumped northbound 4.62%. Crypto Markets Shrug Off the Recent Dip Bitcoin ( BTC ) and a slew of digital assets saw some significant losses yesterday, after a few crypto assets touched new all-time highs (ATH). BTC has been awfully close to the psychological $50k region, but hasn’t managed to cross the price zone yet. On Sunday, the price came really close at $49,715 per unit but tumbled downward after reaching that point. BTC /USD chart on Bitstamp on February 15, 2021. After sliding below the $46k zone, BTC is back up to the $47,800 to $48,150 region once again, but prices are still down 1.8%. The second-largest crypto asset, in terms of market valuation, is